Thursday, 1 December 2016

In Search of the Weavers of Khun.

Khun fabrics come in a variety of bright colours and patterns.

Drive across
the countryside in Maharashtra and north Karnataka and you will see beautiful
rural women going about their daily work clad in beautiful Ilkal saris and a
particular kind of self-designed bordered blouse made of the fabric called
Khun, also called Khana in Karnataka.While I did not get a perfect shot of a traditionally clad woman in a Khun blouse, I have taken this picture from this blog.

This beautiful woman with a big, bold bindi and stunning nose ring, called 'nath' has worn a khun blouse. Photo taken from here.

While my
next post will be on the Ilkal sari weavers, in this post I will dwell upon Khun, which has
come to be my favourite fabric. My associative memory with Khun has been with
the bygone era in Maharashtra, which I haven’t experienced, but which has a
particular sanctity seen through my urbanised eyes. Of women clad in bright
saris, beautiful Khun blouses, wearing the crescent shaped bindi on their
foreheads, bold women comfortable in their own skin.

My cook too
wears Khun blouses on a daily basis, and while Pune markets are flooded with
Khun fabrics, it is only last year that I decided that I must have Khun as part
of my wardrobe. So I went on a Khun rampage and bought some meters of cloth in
various colours, and got some sari blouses, crop tops and skirts stitched with
them.

Wearing a Khun blouse with a Kalamkari saree for Durga puja.

Wearing a Khun crop top in Badami. Photo by Vaijayanti Chakravarthy.

Given our
fast paced city lives, we seldom pause to ponder over the people who have
contributed to making a piece of fabric and clothing. Even if the clothes are
machine made, there are people who choose the colours, design the cloth, and
operate the machines. And in the case of Khun, where it is still pre-dominantly
handloom, I couldn’t help wondering about the people who created this beautiful
fabric. In all the shops I enquired, the shop owners weren’t sure where it was
made, guessing it may be in Kolhapur or in Karnataka. But I wanted a specific
lead, so I could go and meet the weavers.

Finally, in
a seminar I attended, Shefali Vaidya, a noted journalist, who is also a Khun
enthusiast told me it’s made in Guledgudda and soon after, a lady at a stall in
a handloom exhibition gave me the contact number of the person from whom she
sources the fabric.

The lanes of Guledgudda.

I
immediately called up another friend, a long-time Khun lover asking if she
could accompany me. Tickets were booked, leads were contacted and off we both went
in search of Khun.

Sampath Rathi with khun and Ilkal saree.

We first
stopped at the home-cum-office of Sampath Rathi, who is a wholesaler of Khun
and Ilkal sarees. His grandfather had migrated from Rajasthan to Guledgudda in
1924 and made this place his home. He has hundreds of weavers who buy the yarn
from him and give back ready Khun and sarees and he charges a margin from the
weavers. His cotton yarn mainly comes from Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh, silk
yarn from Bangalore and artificial silk from Gujarat. So this works well for
independent weavers who don’t have to get into logistics, but just buy
whichever yarn they want and give him the ready cloth, which he then distributes
and sells in various cities.

Khun comes
in combinations of silk and cotton, polyester and cotton and artificial silk and
cotton. And in innumerable designs, motifs and patterns on the cloth.

A lady weaving Khun.

I had read
one of Shefali Vaidya’s posts, where she mentions that Khun is called so,
because ‘khun’ means sugar and this is a fabric worn by women in the sugar cane
belts in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Sampath gave me a more technical meaning.
He said khun is a unit of measurement. Khun means half a meter, so two Khuns
make a meter of cloth. So one roll of Khun cloth has 44 Khuns, i.e, 22 meters.

A hearty lunch at Sampath Rathi's home.

I asked him
how old Khun is, when did it start? In
textile history there are stories of weavers migrating to other geographies, to
escape oppression of invaders (that’s more likely in India due to the Islamic
invasions), or to escape drought or famine, and then combining their own weaves
with that of the weaves of the new place and forming a new one. Did anything
like that happen with Khun weavers? He had no answer. He said this is the first
time that someone had asked him this question and said that it is at least more
than a 100 years old, based on general knowledge of the area.

Brothers, Motilal and Ambalal Ghanshyam Shah Chavan.

The dyes arranged on shelves.

Un-dyed yarn.

What makes
Khun unique is that it is the only fabric which is primarily made only for
saree blouses, hence the original width of the fabric is 31 inches, although
now weavers have increased the width to one meter.

We feasted our eyes on the numerous bright shades of Khunand Ilkals and also bought some.

To get this shade, they mixed, 100 gms red and 10 gms yellow.

Getting ready to dip the yarn in the cauldron filled with dye.

It was
already 1 pm by then. Sampath casually said that after lunch in his home we
could go and meet the dyers. I was filled with gratitude. He did not wait till
we asked him where we could have lunch. We were just travelers who had stopped
by to meet him and buy a few things. Yet, he asked us to join his family for
lunch. When I thanked his father, he merely said, ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’, the
ancient Indian belief and custom which means, “Treat guests as God”. That’s
the spirit of India, which still thrives in the villages and warms my heart.

There it goes.

Wringing the yarn to remove water.

After a
hearty lunch, we visited the house of Motilal and Ambalal Ghanshyam Shah Chavan,
brothers who are weavers as well as dyers. On the way to their house, we could hear the clickety-clack of handloom and well as power loom from the houses all around. They were in the process of dyeing
yarn with bright red. They are the two out of the only five dyers left in the
whole of Guledgudda. Their daughter promptly brought us some tea, and with
their limited Hindi, they managed to explain the process of dyeing. Water is heated
in a huge cauldron at a temperature of about 40 to 50 degrees Celsius. There
were dye powders which are mixed to get the desired shade and colour. When we
went they were dyeing a crimson red for which they mixed 10 gms turmeric yellow
in 100 gms red dye. Interestingly the colour gets absorbed by the tarn and the
water itself remains colorless.

The steel dryer meant for yarn.

How the yarn is separated to prevent it from getting entangled.

Khun being made on a power loom.

The yarn is then hung on a steel rod and then
dipped into the coloured water. It takes around 30 minutes for the colour to
latch on to the yarn. After half hour, the yarn is squeezed and put in a dryer
to quicken the drying. The dried yarn is then neatly combed and gathered
together by hand to be used in a handloom or power loom. The Chavan brothers
had a power loom running inside the house, so we went and took a look at it. The
power loom makes around 20 meters of Khun per day whereas it takes around 15 days to
make the same on handloom. That’s another reason why the handloom industry is
struggling to survive.

Brothers, Siddharamappa and Jagannatha Mallagi.

We thanked
the Chavan brothers and proceeded to our next stop, to meet the Mallagi
brothers, both weavers of Khun. Both Siddharamappa and Jagannatha Mallagi have
been weaving Khun since their teenage years, having learnt the craft from their
father. They, too, didn’t know the history of Khunn and estimated it to be over
200 years old. They have around 6 looms in their house and all family members
do weaving. All, except the next generation who have IT jobs in Bangalore.
According to the Mallagi brothers, there is no bright future for Khun, as the
next young generation migrates to cities in search of better pay and also
because weaving is hard work and requires one to master the skill.. There are
currently around 4000 weavers of Khun in Guledgudda alone, a huge decline from
the 50,000 weavers in the early 2000’s. The average age of the Khun weavers is
above 40 years.

Their home-cum-workshop.

I observed them working on the handloom and in the stillness of the house, the rhythmic taps and clacks of the handloom seemed poetic and musical. The Mallagis
specialize in pure silk Khun and use only natural dyes which are chemical free.
Thus, the pricing is relatively higher, since the dyes are sourced from various
places. The indigo dye, for example, is grown in Andhra Pradesh, which sends
the raw material to Germany, where it is made into powder form and sent back to
India. I wondered why there are no factories to do this in India !

The Mallagis weave Khun only in pure silk and use natural dyes.

Displaying the various colours.

A skilled weaver weaves around 3 meters a day
and Rs 600 per day is the labor charge if they have weavers from outside the
family. They manage to weave around 40 meters per month.

Such a lovely colour Khun being woven.

There was
such a serene look on the faces of the Mallagi brothers. I asked them if they
were happy doing this. They replied saying that weaving is what they have done
all their lives and this is what they know, so they are happy. I could sense
the contentment too on their faces, as I sipped on the fresh lemonade they
offered. Here, too, we bought some meters of fabric and thanked them profusely
for their time and hospitality.

I got my pick fresh off the loom :-)

I was inspired to illustrate my own version of one of Jamini Roy's paintings to represent Maharashtrian women in Ilkal and Khun with the crescent moon bindi and 'nath :-) Here it is. You may visit my art page, Purple Soul.I am taking orders for prints of this work. Please contact me on priya@purplesoul.org for the same.

My version of Jamini Roy's women in Khun and Ilkal.

I wish more
designers take up Khun as a project and convert this beautiful fabric into interesting
contemporary wear, which will find a wider audience. While browsing, I found this blog with an interesting take on Khun, in the form of a trouser.

Khun stitched into a trouser. A brilliant idea:-). Photo take from here.

A friend, Vaijayanti, also a Khun enthusiast, wore a kurta made of Khun during the trip :-)

Kurta made of Khun.

You may also buy directly from the Mallagis and from Sampath Rathi. Their contact details are given below. For those who are buying from the weavers/artisans for the first time, please DO NOT BARGAIN. I'm assuming others who buy from weavers, would not need that instruction as they would be sensitive to the work of the weavers and artisans and do not bargain over the price. The weavers put in a lot of work and time, not to mention years of expertise in creating a piece of cloth, so let's support them by paying whatever they ask for. You will need to know Hindi, to communicate with them. Sampath Rathi: +91- 9448776400Mallagis: +91- 9008484671We travelled from Pune to Badami by train, stayed at KSTDC Badami and hired a cab to go to Guledgudda, which is around 30 kms away. We also visited the ancient temple complexes of Pattadakkal, Aihole and Badami which I will be writing about soon.

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14 comments:

What a feast for the eyes! The jewel like colors of Khuns glow!I want to thank you for this article. I have always loved the khuns but thought that I had to say goodbye to them as I rarely wear saris nowadays. You have suggested several other uses for the Khuns and I hope designers can create some of these items for selling online.

Awesome informative heartening article! thank you so much. I am from Pune so i get khun there. But was in search of a tailor/place/designer who has converted khan into skirts/ palazzos/ dresses etc Would you be knowing of any such tailor/ place? Thank you!!!!!!

I am from Pune too. I got my skirt and crop tops made from my local tailor. A designer friend of mine in Chennai https://www.instagram.com/tamarai_/ makes customized Khun apparel. She made a jacket for me. Hope this helps :-)

Very interesting information. Recently we have designed Khun saree and was looking for information about dealers, weavers of Khun. In love with this fabric. And you have posted photographs of unique colour combinations. We are working as Gabha Creations on fb and insta.